The Regiment-A Trilogy

by John Dalmas

  The men that were with him, though, were grinning. Kelmer stood unbelieving. Then Jerym gave the order, and once more quiet, they headed into the woods along an old sleigh road.

  11

  Half a mile back in the woods, the sleigh road petered out. The major moon had topped the horizon behind them, but even so, beneath the forest canopy it was so dark that even on the narrow sleigh road, travel had been slow and somewhat blundering. Without the road, it was too dark to travel, short of dire emergency, so Jerym set sentries, and the rest lay down to sleep.

  They'd sweated off the insect repellent they'd worn, and Kelmer applied more. They were all more or less inured to mosquitoes, but it bothered him to have them biting when he lay down to rest. He wondered if the troopers really would sleep, they'd seemed so exuberant. He lay mentally numb for a time, not really thinking, disconnected images and fragmented thoughts passing through his mind. Once it occurred to him that until tonight he'd thought of himself, usually, as one of them, a trooper. Not always, but usually, for here with the White T'swa, as with the 6th Regiment at Blue Forest, the troopers were remarkably easy to be with, get along with. But tonight it seemed to him that a gulf had opened between himself and them, a gap that couldn't possibly close. That he was no trooper, could never be. He was an impostor. Finally he slept, dozing fitfully until dawn began to thin the darkness.

  The sentries wakened them and they started on again, speeding to a trot when the forest became light enough. Apparently no one had followed them into the night. Kelmer wondered if indeed the Komarsi had any idea where they might be, or how many, or even what had happened at all.

  After about two miles, they topped a low ridge, the highest in the vicinity, and ranged northward briefly along the crest to where they'd stashed their packs. Jerym called a halt there, and they opened their packs to eat before pushing on again.

  At midday they stopped. Sentries were posted. They ate, and men lay down to nap for half an hour, Kelmer a little apart from the others. Jerym came over to him and sat down beside him. Kelmer avoided meeting his eyes.

  "How did it go for you last night?" Jerym asked.

  You know how it went for me, Kelmer thought. You know exactly how it went for me. "Not very well."

  "Tell me about it."

  There was no sympathy in the words, no consoling. But in spite of that, or perhaps because of it, Kelmer rose a bit from the mental quagmire he was in.

  "I was scared. So scared, I felt like I couldn't move."

  "Ah. Sounds like a bad night, all right. But you moved when you had to; moved up, moved back. And lots of people would have felt as bad." He paused. "Beyond being scared, how was it?"

  The question struck some deep cord of dread in Kelmer. He put a cap on it, but it wasn't a tight seal. It seeped through. Was it all the men they killed? he wondered. That didn't indicate as part of it; a small part at most. No, what really bothered him was the troopers who hadn't come back. It had bothered him a bit when Jerym had talked that first night about a company being used as bait on Terfreya, bait in a trap, and getting shot to pieces. It had bothered him like a gentle prod at a ripe boil. But tonight had truly hit him, hit him hard.

  Kelmer was able to look at Jerym now, at the calm face, the steady eyes. His voice was little more than a whisper when he answered. An intense whisper. "Where are Trimala and Fenwer, and Ekershaw?" It occurred to him that he hadn't sorted out who else was missing.

  Jerym gazed thoughtfully at him, and to some detached part of Kelmer Faronya, it seemed that the trooper was looking for a way to put it. "Ekershaw's still alive, and so are Pelley and Kalbern. But BJ saw Kalbern go down, so I suppose he's wounded and a prisoner. The others are dead; Olkerfel died maybe an hour ago."

  Kelmer's short hairs began to prickle. "How do you know?"

  "When one of us dies, he joins us, lets the others know. That happened even on Terfreya sometimes. Last night it was strong. The training on Oven finished opening that channel for us."

  Kelmer stared, then turned away. And began to shake, shake hard. He hadn't known any of the dead men closely, couldn't even place who Olkerfel was, but a deep grief welled up in him, a grief somehow too dry to find release in tears. He felt Jerym's hand on the back of his shoulder, a brief touch, then he was aware that the lieutenant had left.

  Awhile later he heard Jerym whistle the nappers out of their sleep. Getting up, he put his pack on and joined the others. After a few minutes of hiking, he began to feel almost all right again.

  12

  The Komarsi field hospital occupied what had been a children's camp by a lake, and was busy for the first time since they'd moved in. Sunlight streamed through screened windows, floodlights for dancing dust motes. Men lay sedated on the beds. At the foot of one of them stood several officers. One was a surgeon in a pale blue gown, monitoring what went on, prepared to step in, to demand a halt if necessary. Not that he had the authority to stop it: The subcolonel doing the questioning was General Undsvin's intelligence chief. An aide stood behind the man, pen poised over a secretarial pad.

  "Tell me, Sergeant, what exactly happened?"

  "I was in the first truck behind the escort, three gun trucks. We was prob'ly goin' 'bout twenty-five per; not much more than regulation. . . ."

  The subcolonel interrupted. "What about spacing?"

  "We—started out regs. But we'd closed up some'at. Hard to keep intervals on the road."

  "All right. There'll be no action taken against you for anything you say here. Continue."

  "Well—all of a sudden there was a big explosion up ahead. I think the lead truck got blowed up. Then other trucks piled into the back of 'im. My driver braked so's I got throwed into the windshield, but I had time to get my arm up. Then some'n run into us from behind.

  "My door'd flung open when we hit, but before I could get out, there was a really big explosion from back t'the tail of the convoy—an ammo truck must have blowed—and pieces of truck come rainin' down. About the time they started to hit, there was more explosions, just as bad. The ammo trucks was all back in the back, per regs, and I reckon they'd been keepin' intervals better. There was other explosions not as bad, mortar bombs I think, and when one of 'em hit an ammo truck, that's when it blew. You could feel the ground jump!

  "I knew that wouldn't be all of it, I knew that like I know Yomal loves me, and that I needed to get out of there. But I was too scared while pieces of truck was comin' down outa the sky. Then it stopped, and I jumped out.

  "I could see 'em then, runnin' cross the field shootin'! I went for the ditch, but about the time I jumped, I felt myself get hit. It slammed me in the back, and I landed in the water. I just laid there then; 'tweren't deep enough to drown in, less'n you passed out with your face down in it. There was a lot of shootin' for a couple minutes. I was on my side and I could see 'em runnin' round shootin' people. I closed my eyes, hopin' they'd take me for dead, and finally I couldn't hear 'em no more. After a few more minutes I crawled out of the water. Then I donked out. I didn't know whether I was the only one alive or not."

  The subcolonel nodded curtly, then turned and walked away without a "thank you," a major beside him, his aide following. Outside, the subcolonel questioned the chief surgeon. "You said they killed all but three. Who are those others in there?"

  "I said fifty-six were killed and only three were wounded. But there were six ambulances with twelve medics in the convoy, going to Tekkeros to pick up overflow from the field hospital there. Nine of the twelve were injured in the pileup; none were shot by the raiders."

  The subcolonel's interruption was testy. "Make sense, man! You said only three were wounded!"

  The surgeon's face tightened. "Their injuries were from collision, colonel. They were not shot; they wore blue medical corps jackets."

  The subcolonel bit short what may have started as an oath, and turned away without acknowledging. The damned hair-splitter! The chief surgeon outranked him, was a full colonel, but he was also a commoner; you could
smell it. Probably the son of a merchant family—the kind that tended to think they were better than their position in life.

  He led his small party to the command car they'd come in. One was another subcolonel, chief of the general's planning staff. The planning chief walked beside him. "You say these raiders are offworld mercenaries. How can you be sure?"

  "Our spies at Burnt Woods reported a regiment of foreigners were landed from a spaceship there. They saw the ship themselves, saw it come down. And before the day was out, they'd heard that a mercenary regiment had been landed from it. They then went to where they could see their encampment."

  "I'm aware of that."

  "They're the ones who attacked the brigade bases; that seems quite evident. The prisoners we took, and the bodies we recovered, were remarkably muscular. That and the way they operate are proof enough."

  "And when the prisoners were questioned?"

  "There were only a few, and none said anything. Unless you count howling."

  "Perhaps further questioning will be fruitful?"

  "There can be no further questioning."

  "Dead?!"

  "Dead."

  The planning chief frowned and looked away. The intelligence chief said nothing. He'd erred, he recognized that now, in letting brigade G-2s do the questioning. They'd been traumatized by the devastation at their bases. Three weren't even intelligence-trained, had inherited the G-2 hat because brigade G-2s had been wiped out. He should have had the prisoners brought to Rumaros and questioned them himself.

  No doubt General Undsvin would point that out to him quite forcefully.

  13

  The raids on Komarsi brigade bases were the major subject of conversation in the Smoleni army and in what was left of government. And the information that fueled those conversations came from more than the mercenaries involved. Each raiding team had been accompanied by a Smoleni intelligence officer, only one of whom failed to return safely.

  "Belser's angry about it," Fossur said.

  Romlar nodded, and sipped the "joma" Fossur's orderly had served. At Burnt Woods they called it, "war joma"; it was actually made from scorched grain. "He was angry from the start," Romlar said. "He's angry because we're here."

  "True." The president had had to insist, when Romlar had wanted intelligence officers attached to the raiding parties, and Belser had left the meeting in a huff. "He'd have resisted harder if he'd thought you'd be so successful. Now he says you've stirred up a hornets' nest; he expects the Komarsi to mount punitive strikes."

  "Mmm." Romlar sipped again. "It's to their advantage not to. They control the territory they need to win the war, win it by starving you out. But if they make punitive strikes, they'll have to move on forest roads. In that case you can hit and run, hit and run. Bleed them badly.

  "Meanwhile our raids tell your friends abroad that you're not just sitting in the backcountry waiting to run out of food. You're taking the war to the Komarsi. Consider the impact on public opinion in other countries when the cubes of the raid on Hearts Content get circulated around Maragor."

  Fossur nodded. The Krentorfi ambassador had been delighted when they'd been played for him, and young Faronya had made copies for him to take back to the queen. Komars was not a well-liked kingdom, and Engwar a widely disliked monarch. Perhaps states besides Krentorf would be inclined now to provide aid. There'd already been a rumor that Oselbent and The Archipelago had discussed a mutual defense pact. If Selmark joined them, he had no doubt at all that Oselbent would provide an avenue for shipping in food and munitions. As it was, the Oselbenti feared Komarsi reprisals—the shelling of her ports.

  "You haven't told me what you'll do next," he said. "You won't catch the Komarsi asleep like that again. They're already building gun towers, digging trenches, and hauling in a lot more barbed wire."

  Romlar laughed. "We're working on several things. But they need to be kept absolutely secret from the Komarsi, and they almost certainly have agents here. Like you have there."

  Fossur nodded; as an intelligence specialist, he took spies for granted. Romlar looked around, then got to his feet. "Let's take a walk."

  They walked a meadow path along the bank of the Almar River. Romlar described his plans, most of them requiring cooperation, and they made some agreements. Fossur, who had friends and connections throughout the army and government, said he could provide the resources without going through Belser, for these were all small matters, small but crucial. "If necessary I'll ask the president for help."

  He bent, picked up a short piece of branch left by flood-water, and threw it in the river. They watched it slide down the current to an eddy, where it spun around briefly, going nowhere, then emerged and floated on.

  "I suppose you wonder why he leaves Eskoth in command."

  "I've guessed because the general led a skilled and dogged defense in the south. And perhaps because of old friendship."

  "Actually they didn't know one another until Heber was elected president, but there seems to be a certain affinity between them. You've noticed the president is invariably polite to him, regardless of how surly Eskoth might be. But when he says do such and such, Eskoth always shuts up and does it, however gracelessly. I have no doubt that if he ordered him to take his army and begin a suicide offensive on Rumaros, Eskoth would do it.

  "Actually I think he might replace him, if he had someone he felt enough confidence in. I can think of several myself, and I've named them to him. But—" Fossur shrugged. "The president's a mild and patient man. Too patient, I'd say. Once he decides something though . . ." He glanced sideways at Romlar. "It helps that he's so big. And you've shaken hands with him; you know what his grip is like. He wasn't always an academic. As a boy and a youth he worked as a fuelwood cutter, felling and bucking trees, loading them on sleighs, and hauling them to his uncle's fuelyard at Collinsteth, where he'd help cut them up and split them. He's said to have been mild mannered even in those days, and usually with a book in his pocket."

  When they parted, Romlar returned to regimental headquarters thinking how unusual a country Smolen was, and how unusual its president.

  * * *

  Kelmer sat in the president's parlor, showing the cube of the raid on Hearts Content. This was a command performance. Heber Lanks had seen it before, but his daughter hadn't, and she'd asked Kelmer to show it to her. So he'd brought the player from his tent. Initially Weldi Lanks had been more interested in seeing the rugged, good-looking young Iryalan than the video, but as he played it, she'd become fascinated.

  When it was over, the president looked thoughtful and a little drawn. "War," he said, "is not an activity I greatly like."

  "Me either, Daddy. But we didn't want the war! They invaded us! They forced it on us!"

  "Yes, and sit safely in Linnasteth or on their estates, sending their serfs to die for them." He looked at Kelmer. "Bullets don't avoid journalists. What do you think of dying in battle, Mr. Faronya?"

  "I—" Kelmer wanted to seem brave to Weldi, but he could not flagrantly lie, so he evaded the question with a half truth. "I haven't been exposed much to combat, Mr. President. But I don't find death comfortable to think about."

  "And what do your comrades think of dying in battle? They've been exposed abundantly to it. Colonel Fossur studied their record on Terfreya, where they lost about a third of their number."

  "On Confederation member worlds there are tests they give children," Kelmer said. "And make psychological profiles from them. Some people are born to be warriors; all of the regiment's troopers were. But I'm not, so I can't really know how they feel about things. I can only observe what they do and say."

  Weldi looked interested. "What do you classify as, Kelmer?"

  He thought of where he fitted in the Matrix of T'sel, but that was something else. "They don't tell you," he answered, "at least not ordinarily. You don't need to be a warrior to be a soldier, though; most soldiers aren't. As far as getting killed is concerned, troopers, the men of the regiment, don't seem
to be afraid at all. But they're different than most warriors, too: they're T'swa-trained. And they believe implicitly that when they die, they'll be reborn as someone else."

  "Really?" Weldi said. "They believe that?"

  "Apparently."

  "Umh," the president grunted. "How well does this belief hold up when they look down the barrel of a hostile machine gun?"

  "You might ask Colonel Romlar, sir. Or maybe Lieutenant Alsnor; he led his platoon in repeated actions on Terfreya, and in time almost every man in it got killed. It was a special platoon that got especially dangerous missions."

  "And does it still?"

  "I'm not sure, but they made the Hearts Content raid. Company A is stationed at Shelf Falls now. I'm supposed to go there tomorrow, to rejoin him."

  "You'll be gone then!" Weldi said.

  Kelmer nodded. "That's right, Miss Lanks."

  "Daddy, I've hardly had a chance to know Mr. Faronya, and now he'll be gone!"

  The president smiled. "I have things to do in my office. Why don't you two stay here and talk."

  He unfolded his long frame and left them. Weldi didn't give Kelmer time to feel uncomfortable; she began at once to talk. "Kelmer—may I call you Kelmer? You may call me Weldi. What is it like where you're from, Kelmer?"

  Her gaze was intense, making him feel a little awkward. She was a very pretty girl. "I went to university in Landfall," he said. "It's a big city: more than a million people."

  She nodded. "I've read about Landfall. It's thought to be the place where the first people landed in our sector. It must be wonderful to live there."

  "It's nice, all right. But I grew up in a smallish town called Silver Lake. There are lots of lakes and wooded hills around there. Not wild forest, like you have here, but very lovely. Tended forest. And the trees are mostly leaf trees. One of the things I liked to do was hike and run along the roads. We use AG vehicles there, instead of surface vehicles; they run about eight inches above the ground. So the roads and highways are kept in grass, and there are beds of perennial flowers along the edges."